


Just Within Reach (But Oh So Far Away)

by Reiven



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is Concerned about Magnus, Friendship, Good Boyfriend Alec Lightwood, Hurt Magnus Bane, Insecure Magnus Bane, M/M, POV Magnus Bane, Post-Canon, Protective Alec Lightwood, Relationship(s), Sad Magnus Bane, post 2x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 00:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11242794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiven/pseuds/Reiven
Summary: ‘I didn’t need you to fix me. I just needed you to love me while I fixed myself.’Magnus is broken on the inside and there’s nothing anyone can really do to put him back together. The only thing anyone can do is to not allow him to crumble even further. Luckily for him he has a handful of people who are adamant on not letting that happen, whether he wants their help or not.





	Just Within Reach (But Oh So Far Away)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for and dedicated to my best pal and awesome Meta Queen, Yuks. Special thanks to my awesome beta-readers, Jezz and Jessica. Love you guys so much.

_ Tell me how to fix this. _

Those were the words Alexander had said. Saying as well as asking; pleading with him; desperation in his voice and a glistening sheen of tears in his eyes. 

_ Tell me _ how to fix this. Tell me  _ how _ to fix this. Tell me how to  _ fix _ this. Tell me how to fix  _ this. _

He repeats the phrase over and over again in his head and just listens to how the meaning changes significantly with emphasis on each of the individual words. 

Alexander had said only one thing, asked only one question, but he wanted answers for the thousand other questions that were swirling around in his head.  _ Please. _

_ Tell me? _

There was nothing for Magnus to tell. What would he even say? Where would he even begin? Alexander needed to know what to do, but Magnus didn’t even know how to exist in that moment, much less find answers for questions he couldn’t even begin to comprehend and advice for problems he couldn’t even begin to fix.

_ How? _

How? How? How? 

Was there anything even left of Magnus to be fixed? That was the better question.

Alexander needed to know because he needed to make things okay, but Magnus doesn’t think he’ll ever really be okay again.

He was always so good with words; finding the right thing to say, the right spell and the right incantation. He could converse in any language and any dialect of any continent of the world in every era.

But his words meant nothing when he was begging for his life, pleading for mercy and desperate for Alexander to believe him.

His words were worth nothing to anyone then, and right now, Magnus finds himself genuinely at a loss for them.

His personality and his eclecticism; his clothes, his makeup and his jewelry; they were what he allowed other people to see. But they were also just a single drop in the bucket of something much larger in the grand scheme of Magnus. His age and his experience; they were what molded him, what protected him and what made him the person he was today. But his words, his intellect, his mind and his body, at the very core of it, they were what made Magnus,  _ Magnus _ .

And to have it all taken away from him, to have it… _ violated _ without compassion or mercy and not be able to do anything about it; to be reduced to nothing more than a desperate, simpering, pleading husk of a person, that was the worst kind of torture there was.

Looking into the eyes of the person he loved most and to see only contempt and disgust staring him back in the face…that was the worst kind of agony he’d ever experienced.

His body had been stolen by Valentine and his autonomy ripped away. His mind had been completely violated by the Clave and everything that had been left of him ripped down to the barest, and through all this he could do absolutely nothing to save himself.

Magnus had never felt so powerless and pitiful in his life and to him that was a feeling worse than death.

He could find no words to answer. He could barely find the strength to carry himself out of the bedroom, to put one foot ahead of the other. He couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere other than at the floor at his feet.

“Tell me what to do. Please.”

There’s nothing you can do, Alexander.

But those words are only in his head.

He can’t look at Alexander.

He’s just so drained.

He thinks of his mother, the devastated look on her face when she learned the truth, the hopelessness he remembers seeing, and the pain. There was so much pain. It burned through him like fire but it left behind no marks. It ripped through him like a serrated dagger, hooking onto the memories and the emotions and the feelings he’d long put behind him and dragging them to the surface as the blade was pulled out. It was agony and terror and sorrow and the sound of his mother’s voice calling his name so gently. But it wasn’t his name as he knew it, or as anyone else knew it. It was his name nearly forgotten somewhere along the passage of time and sometimes Magnus has to think hard to even remember it himself. Somewhere in the background there are only screams of anguish and fear and desperation drowning out his words when he called back to her. It’s only when the screaming stops and his throat feels burned out and raw, that Magnus realizes the screaming was his own.

He hadn’t moved from his position on the couch; his hands clenched tight in front of him and his posture curled protectively into himself. Perhaps if he made himself as small as possible, no one could find him to hurt him again.

He has to remind himself that no one was looking to hurt him and it was only he and Alexander in the apartment.

Alexander is still sitting beside him. Magnus feels his devastated presence there even though he can’t bring himself to look. 

No one has said anything. 

There is nothing to say.

Magnus is just so tired. All he wants to do is sleep, but he’s too tired to do even that.

Alexander still hasn’t moved.

No one has.

Time is almost at a standstill but Magnus feels like it’s going way too fast. He can hear the ticking sound of his grandfather clock in the den, just ticking—tick, tick, tick, tick. He wants it to just stop. He wants everything to stop, just to allow him to catch his breath.

“Do you need anything?”

He hears the question. He feels Alexander’s eyes on him before he glances up to meet his gaze for the first time in what feels like weeks, when in fact it had all just happened over the course of a single day. That was all it took, one day, to completely break him, and he’s still shedding pieces of himself too quickly for him to pick them back up.

But Alexander just asked him a question, and for the first time, it’s a question he thinks he can answer.

“Just time…and rest,” he says and he tries to dredge up a smile for Alexander’s sake but he doesn’t think he succeeds.

Alexander just nods silently and lets out a near whispered, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Magnus repeats before he tears his eyes away.

No one moves, but time keeps ticking on.

Eventually he excuses himself to the bedroom where he can do nothing but perch silently on the edge of his mattress at the foot of the bed looking out at his room. This place that was his sanctuary, a place that was so sacred to him, a part of him; he can’t look at anything around him without seeing traces of Valentine’s filthy presence tainting everything he owns, everything that is the most valuable to him. He is disgusted and angry, but he is also so exhausted.

He can see the silhouette of Alexander’s form out of the corner of his eye, still sitting hunched over miserable on the couch where he left him. 

He still hasn’t moved.

Magnus wants to call out to him, to say his name out loud for once instead of whispering it religiously in his head. He wants him to go back to the Institute to be with his family and his own people. He wants him to be closer, and further away. He wants Alexander to look at him but he doesn’t want him to see  _ Magnus _ . 

Magnus doesn’t know what he wants.

He misses Ragnor so much in this moment; the ache from the loss nearly overpowers the trauma he just suffered. 

He wants Ragnor and Catarina, but he doesn’t know what he would even say, so he allows himself to lie back down on the bed, still in his day clothes with his makeup intact and his necklaces clinking against each other on his chest.

He doesn’t sleep but he’s gotten good at pretending to be.

He can sense Alexander shuffling around in the living room. He hears the sound of broken glass being gathered up and little crystal trinkets being put away. Alexander is trying to be quiet, he can tell, but his senses are so heightened and in tune to the sounds of his surroundings that he can almost hear the sound of Alexander’s heart beating inside his chest. It’s almost like a lullaby that lulls him to sleep and he doesn’t remember drifting off until he feels the heat of an inferno start burning him from the inside; poking sharpened steel rods into his eye sockets and the sound of laughter at his pain. The voice sounds just like his mother but with a deep and eerie undertone that rattles him to his bones.

Someone is screaming in the background when he jolts awake, only to find Alexander’s worried, wide eyed gaze looking down at him from a respectable distance and his voice calling his name softly.

“Magnus?” Alexander calls his name gently. “Can I do anything?” he asks. His eyes wide with worry and glistening in the dim light in the bedroom.

Someone had switched off the main light while he was asleep and left light only coming from the few lamps scattered throughout the room.

“There’s nothing to be done, Alexander,” Magnus says, it’s not a lie. “I just need…a little time.”

“I understand,” he says, and Magnus can tell the exact moment he sees Alexander’s heart break. “If you need m—if you need anything. Just call me. I’ll be right outside.”

Alexander pushes himself to his feet and spares one last longing look at Magnus before he turns around to leave.

He’s almost to the door when Magnus hears the sound of his own voice calling out; “Alexander,” causing him to halt abruptly, with his hand still in the air reaching to grasp the door frame to steady himself. “Will you—” he starts when Alexander turns his head around to look at him, a little spark of hope ignited in his spirit. “Will you…just…stay.”

The hopefulness that blossoms in his face tugs at something deep inside Magnus. For a moment he’s looking at a vision of himself, so young, so in love and so—hopeful. It touches Magnus to know that all that was directed at him, as opposed to him looking at another person in the same way.

“Yes—yes, o-of course,” he nearly stutters out, retracting his hand from where it was reaching for something he no longer needs; something to hold him up, as if all he needs for strength were Magnus’s words. 

Magnus can almost tell the direction Alexander’s mind was heading, so he pats the empty side of the bed as an invite before Alexander can even think about reaching for the chair at the opposite end of the room which he would have undoubtedly been more than happy to occupy for the rest of the night. “There will always be a place for you in this bed, Alexander,” he says the minute he senses the first flicker of hesitation in Alexander’s eyes.

“Are you su—”

“I’m always sure,” Magnus interrupts. “I just need a little time and some space, but not too much space.”

The first genuine smile he’s seen in a while flickers across Alexander’s face. He finds his own side of the bed soon enough before they both move to lie down without even bothering to remove their clothes, besides their shoes, or the decorative cover on the bed.

The both of them lie there in silence, within reaching distance but not touching. Alexander is on his side, curled slightly into himself as if trying to make himself smaller to take up less room on the bed. He’s facing Magnus, his eyes looking at Magnus intently but without saying a word or expecting a response to his staring. Magnus is on his back, eyes staring up unblinking at the bed canopy above his head; his fingers fidgeting nervously from where they were intertwined on his chest.

Magnus hasn’t been in a bed fully clothed and completely dressed up since that time with Ragnor in Sicily in the early eighteen-hundreds. 

Thoughts of his oldest friend manage to cheer him up and bring him down almost in the same breath.

“I’m sorry, Magnus,” Alexander says. His tone dripping with regret. “For letting that happen to you,” he says. “For being the reason it happened.”

That last statement spurs Magnus into motion. He finally turns to meet Alexander’s weathered gaze. “You’re not responsib—”

“But I am,” he says, his voice nearly hitching. “If I hadn’t asked you to summon Azazel. If I had just listened to my instincts telling me how  _ wrong _ that plan was.”

“It was Valentine’s idea,” Magnus says. “It must have been his plan all along. You can’t blame yourself—”

“I should have listened to myself, then none of this would have happened.”

“You don’t know that, Alexander. If it wasn’t this plan, it would have been another. Valentine is a very smart and very dangerous man. It was a lapse in judgement on all our parts this time.”

Alexander swallows hard. “I just…I just wish I knew how to help you.”

Magnus doesn’t answer immediately. He tears his gaze away to stare at the lining of his ceiling and the embossed pattern on the surface. “Just…do what you’re doing now,” he says. “Just…be here.”

He sees Alexander’s nod from out of the corner of his eye. “Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”

Magnus isn’t anywhere close to being healed, but at least it feels like parts of him have finally stopped chipping away.

He is nowhere near whole, but at least he isn’t getting more broken.

Unexpectedly, he sleeps through the night; only once does he recall the familiar feel of molten lava coursing through his body and the sound of an inhuman screech rattling his eardrums. But he also recalls the feel of a cool, comforting presence by his side, holding his hand and stroking his hair back from his forehead. He isn’t awake, but he isn’t asleep either. Just drifting aimlessly somewhere in between. But the presence is relaxing and comforting and it snuffs out the flames of agony flaring up inside his body. It also knows his name and Magnus finds comfort in that fact; hearing his name reverberating inside his mind. Never has the sound of his own name brought him such a feeling of peace before, and so he sleeps on.

He bypasses the morning and sleeps through the afternoon and the evening; not realizing when the sun sets for the second time and the darkness claims the world once again. He sleeps. He doesn’t think he’s ever slept so much in his nearly four hundred years of life.

Nightmares plague him; of looking in the mirror and seeing his own face staring back at him. But it isn’t really his face. This time he isn’t in Valentine’s body. This time he’s in his own body, but he has become Valentine himself. Instead of his gold cat eyes staring back through his reflection, he sees only black; bleeding out the corneas into the whole eyeball. It’s not a smile he’s wearing on his face, but an unfamiliar sneer; his face and clothes splattered with red, trailing down the side of his neck and down his chest, staining his clothes and dying the ground underneath his feet. 

It’s blood, and he’s covered in it.

This time it’s not him that’s burning; the molten ash and lava isn’t coursing through his veins and eating at his insides.

This time, it’s everyone else that’s on fire.

And he’s laughing until he screams instead.

Alexander is there; he’s alive and he isn’t on fire and Magnus nearly weeps at the sight when he opens his eyes. He doesn’t, but he feels the trickling of warm tears trail down his face and a sob he was trying to deny starts to choke him. This time he can’t say anything or do anything but he feels Alexander’s strong arms take him by the shoulders and pull him close into a firm embrace. He melts into the touch easily. 

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that and he doesn’t realize when he drifts off again, still desperately hanging onto the comfort in Alexander’s embrace. Only when the morning comes and he can feel the heat of the early sunrise warming up his face does he realize he was waking up from sleep. Alexander’s comforting arms were no longer around him, holding him close, but the Shadowhunter himself was sitting there at the edge of the mattress just looking at him with an intense gaze.

“Good morning,” he greets, pushing a smile forward for Magnus’s sake.

“Good morning, Alexander,” Magnus replies, stretching his arms out to work out the kinks. He never realized how much he took for granted the safe feeling of being in his own body. It was one mistake he’d never let happen again. “How long was I asleep?”

“Through the night and all day yesterday and the whole of last night.”

The revelation surprises Magnus and it takes him a moment to find his voice again. “And you were here? The whole time?”

“Umm…” Alec looks like he’s trying to find the appropriate answer to the question. “I left for a while…you know, to clean up the living room a bit yesterday and to make a cup of coffee. And I had to let Izzy, Jace and Clary in because the wards wouldn’t let them pass.”

Alexander looked like he was feeling guilty over the fact that he’d left Magnus alone, while Magnus was still trying to process what he’d just heard and the fact that Alexander had interpreted leaving as leaving the room, as opposed to leaving the building, which was what Magnus had meant.

“Alexander, I…I—” he’s grasping to find the right words, but it seems like his entire vocabulary has decided to abandon him. “ _ Thank you. _ ”

Alexander looks genuinely shocked at the gratitude. “I didn’t do anything.”

“But you did,” Magnus says. “You stayed.”

That brings a small smile to Alexander’s face. “I’d do anything for you, Magnus,” he says and for the first time in a while, Magnus feels a small genuine smile come to his face too.

He isn’t healed, not by a long shot. But maybe now he is actually set on the right path.

He tries to be his usual Magnus self when Clary and Jace, Izzy and Simon show up; pulling out something nice from his closet, something embroidered with gold with a splash of colour; doing his hair and makeup, maybe slightly overdoing it with the glitter and the highlights. Maybe he smiles a little too easily and laughs a little too frivolously even though he feels only darkness on the inside, but if Alexander or anyone notices, they don’t mention it.

He struggles just to put one foot ahead of the other, to bring the crystal wine glass up to his lips and sip; the liquid tasting more like the coagulated blood he choked on in his nightmares. But he downs every sip and refills every time until everyone leaves and it’s only him and Alexander in the apartment once more.

He couldn’t hear the sounds of leather belts snapping together without flinching. He couldn’t hear the sounds of metal chains clanking without feeling his heart beating just a little bit faster than usual. He couldn’t slide his shower stall door close completely when he went to the bathroom without seeing his reflection in the glass and feeling like he’d been transported back into that jail cell, looking at the stranger wearing his face staring back at him with such contempt and hate.

Magnus feels like he could barely function without flinching every other minute at nothing.

But Alexander stays.

He doesn’t say much and he doesn’t ask too many questions, but he still does. He’s finally changed into the clothes Jace had brought for him but his eyes are still weary and tired, like he hasn’t slept in days. Like no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t find peace from his own thoughts. Magnus can relate.

But he stays, always within reaching distance but never touching, unless Magnus initiates the contact first. Then he latches on like he was just as desperate for the touch as Magnus was.

Magnus never asked all this of him and he probably never would have, but at the same time, Alexander gives so readily and so freely when it’s the people who have managed to scratch under the surface to see the person he really was on the inside.

Magnus would never have asked for comfort but with Alexander, he didn’t have to. The only thing Alexander wanted in return was to feel needed, to know that he was wanted. He would have given Magnus everything, which is a reality Magnus found as touching as it was bittersweet. Sometimes, the darkness within him makes him wonder whether Alexander would still feel the same if he knew the  _ real _ Magnus. The Magnus that was stripped of all the glitz and the glamour and the fancy words and the extravagance; the chipped and fragmented Magnus that cowered in the dark corner of his memory, naked and bare, hiding from pain and hurt and sadness; trying to cease to exist without actually dying. Would Alexander still love him then?

But Alexander stays, even though Magnus says very little and he does even less. He answers questions with a crisp short reply, but Alexander doesn’t stop asking.

_ Do you want anything?  _ No. But thank you, Alexander.

_ Would you like a drink?  _ No. But thank you, Alexander.

_ Would you like something to eat?  _ No. But thank you, Alexander.

_ Would you like to lie down?  _ No. But thank you, Alexander.

He wishes he could say more, but he doesn’t have the words.

But Alexander doesn’t stop asking and he doesn’t leave. It isn’t until a couple of days later that Magnus really hears the question Alexander is asking.

Does  _ he _ want anything?

Would  _ he _ like a drink?

What would  _ he _ like to eat?

Would  _ he _ like to lie down?

None of the questions were about what Alexander could do for him, but about what Magnus needed Alexander to do. They were all about Magnus’s needs and his wants and  _ him _ being put first for a change. Sometimes people didn’t realize what a big difference that made.

The truth was it was never about Alexander finding a way to fix him; it was about Alexander just being there for him while he tried to fix himself. He’s done it many times over and over again, even though it never gets any easier. But this time, with someone there to catch him should he fall, with someone who could share the burden he was carrying on his shoulder; Magnus thinks that this obstacle might yet be overcome. 

Alexander stays, and Magnus could not ask for anything more.

But Alexander doesn’t just  _ stay _ . He doesn’t just sit around and wallow with Magnus. He moves around the apartment with a swiftness befitting a Nephilim, quietness befitting a hunter and with care and concern that could only come from love. He acts as a go between when other people come to visit: Dot, haunted by fear of being so close to Valentine and not realizing it and absolutely wrecked with guilt for not even suspecting that Magnus hadn’t been Magnus. When Raphael came one night, as he would come for many nights, while Simon was there with Izzy, he did nothing more than glare through the pain and the betrayal that was in his own eyes when he looked at the both of them; whispering under his breath in Spanish and trying to pretend neither of them were really there. His focus was completely on Magnus and the concern in his eyes touched Magnus to the core. Magnus thinks that he shouldn’t be as surprised as he is because Raphael has the biggest heart out of all the people he knows, it doesn’t matter that it isn’t beating.

He stays long after Simon and Izzy scurry off; in the enclosed space of Magnus’s apartment with Magnus and Alexander, but neither of them showed any indication that they noticed the apprehension Magnus can feel brewing in the air. They’re cordial, to put it simply, to an almost hilarious point. Magnus almost laughs but for the split second that the feeling is there, Magnus realizes that he doesn’t really remember how to. 

Sometimes when Alexander is in a different part of the apartment, out of reaching distance, and it’s just Magnus alone with his thoughts, he can almost hear a whisper of the familiar voice, the familiar accent and the familiar biting sarcasm and it takes all his self-control not to smile at the empty corner of the room or when the sudden chill that blankets him feels more like the embrace of an old friend.

He misses Ragnor.

The dawn is breaking on the sixth day, rising on the horizon and casting a glow over the rooftops of the buildings spread out in the distance. Another night tossing and turning in his sleep. Another night of watching himself burn and taking the whole world with him down to the ashes. Another night of watching Alexander die a bloody death; his body splayed lifeless on the ground among all the other dead Shadowhunters whose bodies are already littering the battlefield.

Another morning waking up to Alexander’s concerned gaze staring down at him; his body close but not touching, his hand even nearer, separated by a hair width distance, but not latching on, despite how desperately he obviously wants to deep down.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Alexander says.

That piques Magnus’s curiosity. “Who?”

“They’re waiting in the living room,” he says. “If you want to… you know,” and motions to Magnus, up and down with a gesturing hand. 

Magnus looks at himself in his full length mirror when he pushes himself to his feet; taking in the sight of his tousled hair and the remnants of smudged eyeshadow in the crease of his eyelid and the outer corner of his eyes and the rumpled silk pajamas he had on. “Give me a few minutes,” he says before disappearing into the walk in closet.

He hears the sound of the bedroom door being closed with a click and Alexander leaving him to his privacy.

He takes his time getting ready but without lingering too long and leaving his guest to wait on him. But all it took, as Alexander had put it, was a little gesturing hand and some magic and he’d be all proper and presentable again. It takes him a few minutes to get ready, to magic his hair into his regular up-do and to do the make up on his face. Usually when it came to his makeup, Magnus liked putting in that little extra effort to do it by hand. But today, as had been for the past week, he just couldn’t muster up the strength. He was getting stronger, but there was still a bone deep tiredness that was wrapping around his spirit, refusing to let go.

He’d just exited the closet when there’s a knock at his door and Alexander’s voice ringing out calling his name.

“Are you okay?” he asks when he pops his head in after Magnus has called him to enter.

“I am,” Magnus says, as he surveys his reflection in the mirror, adjusting the gold chains around his neck. “Just putting in the last finishing touches. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Alexander,” Magnus calls back as he’s about to leave. Not turning around but looking at him through his reflection in the mirror. “You don’t ever have to knock when you’re here,” he says. “This apartment is as much your home as it is mine.”

Alexander hesitates for a moment before he finally agrees. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Magnus repeats before giving himself a once over in the mirror and turning to face Alexander still standing half in, half out of the door. “How do I look?”

Alexander smiles his gorgeous smile that still refuses to reach his eyes. “Breathtaking,” he says sincerely, and Magnus has to avert his eyes to hide the blush creeping onto his cheeks.

Alexander walks him out of the bedroom and accompanies him the few steps that takes them to the adjoining living room. There’s no one there but the door leading to the balcony is open and Magnus can sense the familiar presence even from where he was standing.

“I’ll make some coffee,” Alexander says before he moves to turn to head towards the kitchen.

Before he can take even a single step, though, Magnus reaches out suddenly to grab his wrist in a vice like grip, holding it tight between his fingers.

“Alexander,” he starts, his mouth opening and closing slightly as he struggles to find the words. “You don’t…you don’t have to do all of this. You’ve done  _ more _ than enough already, more than I could have ever asked for.”

Alexander looks at where Magnus’s hand is holding onto his. He tugs slightly, not to pull his wrist out of Magnus’s grip, but to loosen his fingers, just so that he can turn his palm inwards to loosely intertwine their fingers; his thumb gently caressing the center of Magnus’s palm.

It almost feels like magic or a jolt of electricity, not his own, but the effect of Alexander’s touch on his sensitive skin.

A warlock’s hands were their most important and priceless possessions. That was how they channeled their magic and how they created miracles. If a warlock were to lose the use of their hands, then they were better off being dead.

Magnus never liked people touching him or putting their hands on him without his permission; absolutely not on his hands or his arms, most definitely not on his palms. There was an inside joke among warlocks that you could never really please a warlock intimately, because their most sensitive area wasn’t down there; it was a juvenile comment that only warlocks could laugh at when they were in the company of each other, but it wasn’t far from the truth. There was nothing sexual about it, but no one touched a warlock’s hands without risking losing their own. 

Magnus never told this to anyone, not even to Alexander. But standing there, hand in hand, with Alexander’s gentle touch and his thumb trailing the side of Magnus’s palm and the inside of his wrist; all of that felt just right. 

“I want to,” he says finally and Magnus can’t find it in him to argue with those words. Deep down, he wants to be selfish and he wants to take it all without shame. He wants to be the one pursued, instead of the pursuer, and for the first time he thinks that maybe his wish finally came true.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Alexander repeats, mimicking their conversation from earlier before excusing himself to the kitchen. He squeezes Magnus’s hand one final time before reluctantly releasing his grip.

Magnus is sad to see him go, but suddenly remembers that he still has a guest waiting for him out on the balcony.

He knows who it is before he even sees the figure standing with her back to him, staring out at the world beyond his small concrete patio. His heart soars a little before almost immediately plummeting into the depths of his stomach.

“Magnus,” he hears her say without even turning to look at him. “You utter  _ idiot _ .” 

Catarina looks furious when she finally turns to face him.

“Cat—” he starts before being cut off.

“Don’t you  _ ‘Cat’ _ me, Magnus Bane.  _ Six days _ ! And I had to hear it from your boyfriend calling me up instead of you. You are such a—a… _ fool _ . A stupid, moronic, self-sacrificing fool!” 

Magnus doesn’t realize how much he truly missed one of his oldest and closest friends until this moment and he’s looking at her in all her enraged glory; her hair windswept and messy even though it was pulled up into a bun with strands hanging loose over her ear. Her face tinged red around the cheeks in anger and her eyebrows narrowed over eyes that were pooling with unshed tears.

“I am,” he admits sheepishly; feeling the heat rise up into his own face and the prickling of tears behind his eyes. “I am a fool.”

Catarina exhales loudly as she reaches up to rub her face with the palm of her hands. “That you are. And also lucky—” she says, “Lucky to have us around to set you straight when you’re being exceptionally moronic.”

Magnus feels his words getting stuck in his throat as the emotional stress from the last week finally takes its toll.

Catarina crosses the distance in seconds without a word before Magnus just mentally and physically crumbles, and scoops him up in her arms, pulling him into a hug that he’d wanted so desperately and yet had been so afraid to ask for. 

“You should have called me, Magnus, the first moment you were able to,” she says. The anger had evaporated from her voice leaving behind only hurt. “I had to hear about everything from Alec, when I should have heard it from you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says and that’s really the only thing he could say. He feels the warm tears trickling down his face and splashing onto Catarina’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. But don’t you ever leave me in the dark again, Magnus. I won’t be as nice next time.”

He just nods. Catarina probably didn’t even see it but she could feel his forehead’s movement on her shoulder.

They stay like that for what feels like hours; Magnus allowing himself a moment of vulnerability in those arms that he felt so accustomed to and comfortable in and Catarina lets him melt into her embrace without a word.

They don’t talk immediately when they finally do separate. Catarina resumes her position leaning on the concrete barrier, looking out at the city and Magnus steps up beside her and mimics her pose.

They don’t talk about what happened or the torture; they don’t mention Valentine or the Clave, they really don’t say much about what happened because it wasn’t what Magnus needed and Catarina could tell.

“You should tell him,” she says, and for a moment Magnus has to think about who ‘he’ is and what it is he’s supposed to tell him. “He deserves to know.”

Magnus can only inhale and exhale, steadying himself and his thoughts. “I know. But…I…” he breathes out through his nose but lapses into silence.

“I know you’re about to say one out of four possible things you could say in this moment and I don’t agree with any of them.”

Magnus can’t help his chuckle. “Is that so?”

“Yes that is so,” Catarina says. “Alec—your boyfriend, in case you’ve forgotten—he’s not going to get scared off by what you have to say. If he was, he would have left a long time ago.”

Her words still him almost instantaneously.

“I wasn’t—”

“Yes you were, don’t lie to me. I’m not one of your little chicks trailing after you, Magnus. In fact, I would bet all your possessions that I know you better than you know yourself.”

Magnus is about to comment on her betting  _ his _ possessions but decided against it. That isn’t really the point of everything.

“He’s not going to run away screaming if you tell him who you really are, Magnus. Trust him, just as he trusts you.”

Magnus doesn’t answer. He just swallows everything he would have said and opts to glance out at the scenery stretched out before him. He can’t stop himself from imagining the look on Alexander’s face when he was looking at him in that prison; the confusion and disgust. The gorgeous hazel eyes that he could easily find himself lost in, glowering with anger. He couldn’t shake the images free from his mind. But then he thinks of Alexander’s face looking down at him, the canopy of the bed in the background framing his head behind him like a halo; the fear and the concern clouding in his eyes. He’s within reaching distance, but not touching; not unless Magnus touches him first.

“Trust  _ me _ , Magnus,” Catarina adds. “Because I only have your best interest at heart.”

They don’t say anything after that. 

Catarina stays for hours after that, sitting with him in silence but the air around her exuding calm reassurance. It isn’t unlike many years ago when she came to comfort him over his loss. The only difference is that now it is just the two of them left.

Alexander brings them coffee but doesn’t say a word. The only sound is Catarina’s appreciative thank you and the way her hand reaches out to cup his face gently when he places the cup on the table beside her.

When she leaves, Magnus feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but the same time, her departure causes him a feeling of profound loss.

No one else comes that evening, perhaps they knew not to, or perhaps Catarina has somehow warned them against it; but the day winds down with him and Alexander in the apartment by themselves.

Alexander is fidgeting with something in the corner, arranging the little glass figurines in the case almost absentmindedly, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself but he needs to do something. 

Magnus feels like he’s watching a caged animal prowling the confines of his enclosure; getting progressively wilder with nothing to do to release all the pent up energy that has been building up inside him. Alexander is a hunter; he belongs outside with no walls to restrain him and no chains on his spirit to hold him. Not just that, he is also an archer; large open spaces are his hunting ground and being sequestered away for days with no real purpose and nothing to focus his energy on is obviously getting to him.

But he’s done it all for Magnus and the sudden realization of it,  _ actual _ realization because Magnus hasn’t been able to focus on anything for so long, it makes a warm, tingly feeling blossom inside his chest. For the first time in a week, Magnus actually feels like he’s finally truly awake; that he is finally in the moment, instead of reliving memories of the past over and over in his head.

For the first time in a week, it isn’t his mother’s voice calling his name gently, trying to pull him out of the bad memory by sending him spiraling further into it. It’s Alexander’s voice, and it’s like a firm grip and strong fingers latching onto him pulling him out of the suffocating darkness.

For the first time in a week, Magnus manages to forget.

_ Tell me how to fix this. _

Those were the words Alexander said when they found themselves sitting side by side on the couch after everything had happened. It felt like a million years ago when in reality it had barely been a week. But they found themselves sitting there; Magnus with his hands clenched between his legs, sitting hunched over in an effort to make himself as invisible as possible and Alexander sitting beside him, his eyes downcast and looking like he was carrying the entire weight of the world on his back.

What a sight they must have made.

But right now, in that moment, with his heart lighter and his spirit mending, Magnus finds himself on the same couch in the same spot, but his back is straight and his chest is out and he’s leaning against the backrest instead of trying to hide among the cushions. 

“Alexander,” he calls out and pats the seat beside him when Alexander materializes beside him without sound. “Sit with me for a moment.”

Alexander obliges without a word.

His posture hasn’t changed from that moment, six days ago; he still looks like he’s carrying the world and everyone in it on his shoulders. Just as Magnus’s burden has become progressively lighter, Alexander’s own seems to have doubled in weight.

“Are you alright?” Alexander asks and Magnus almost laughs, but he’s much more touched than amused by the question.

“I’m getting there,” he says. “But what about you? Are you alright, Alexander?”

“I’m fine,” he says, almost too quickly. Magnus remembers a time, not too long ago, of hearing the same words coming out of his mouth. At that time it was Alexander who was fraying on the inside; red droplets of warm blood still streaming down his arm. It had been a lie then, just like it remains a lie today.

“You’re not,” Magnus says.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Alexander. Don’t you remember? When you’re not okay, I’m not okay,” he says earnestly, willing Alexander to look up and meet his gaze.

He does and Magnus tries not to let himself get lost in the swirls of green and hazel when those gorgeous eyes turn up to meet his gaze. “It works both ways too, Magnus,” Alexander says, almost desperately. “When you’re not okay, I’m not okay either.”

Those words halt Magnus immediately. It stops the thought running through his head and the hand that was itching to reach over and grab Alexander’s fist that was clenched on his knee.

“I just,” Alexander continues; his tone of uncharacteristic desperation. “I just wish I knew what to do. I wish I could do more,” he says. “I wish I knew how to help you.”

Magnus’s breath hitches in his chest and he tries not to let his eyes water when he swallows hard. “But you have, Alexander. You have helped me more than I could have asked for. More than I  _ would _ have asked for. You gave me what I needed most, time and space and care and there’s no one in this world that could have helped me more than you did, and I should have thanked you more. I should have let you know that. I didn’t need you to fix me, Alexander, I just needed you…” he trails off to consider his word. “I just needed you to not stop loving me,” he says and subconsciously holds his breath waiting for Alexander’s response.

Alexander just looks at him intently, his expression unreadable. “I... I never would have, Magnus,” he says. “And I never will.”

And Magnus releases the breath he’s been holding, allowing a smile to blossom on his face. “I love you, Alexander,” he says. It’s a phrase he is so used to saying, but one that always ended up leaving him with a broken heart.

This time Alexander smiles and it reaches his eyes for the first time. “I love you too, Magnus.”

They continue sitting there side by side, within reaching distance but not touching, until Alexander unfurls the clenched fist on his knee and tentatively reaches over, searching Magnus’s eyes with his own for a sign that this is okay. 

It is. 

Magnus leans into the touch when Alexander’s fingers caress the side of his face; trailing down his jaw and reaching up to stroke his cheek with the back of his hand. He reaches over to grasp Alexander’s other hand within his and holds it tight with both hands.

“Alexander,” he says, forcing his mind to the present before he gets too lost in the moment. “What happened in my past—my history…how it’s shaped me and how it affected me in the pris—” he immediately stops before bringing out the still painful topic. “What I mean is…”

“It’s okay,” Alexander says and Magnus turns his gaze up to look at him. “I don’t care what happened in the past,” he says. “I mean—I-If you want to tell me, then I’ll listen, gladly, but only if you want to. Just…don’t think that it will change anything between us, okay? Because it won’t. Your history is your history, as my history is mine. What happened then doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is now,” he adds. “It’s being right here with you, right now. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Magnus swallows the lump in his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down against his neck. His smile is small but gentle, just tugging at the corner of his lips and his eyes are moist with emotion. “Alexander,” he says, “When did you get so good with words?”

Alec chuckles and the sound is like music to Magnus’s ears. “Well, when you’re trying not to say half the things you’re thinking of saying to Raphael, I guess you get quite good at thinking about your words before you actually say them.”

It’s like riding a bike, they say, when the instincts kick in and your body moves before you can even really think about what you’re doing.

Magnus laughs.

A loud, genuine laugh that he thought he’d forgotten how to do. 

And Alexander laughs and in that moment Magnus doesn’t think anything could have made that moment better.

“Raphael’s not a bad person,” Magnus says after the laughter has died down and both of them have lapsed into a companionable silence.

Alexander looks like the words are being dragged out of him when he says through gritted teeth. “I know. I remember what he did for Izzy in the end,” he says. “And I know what Simon and Izzy did to him as well, with his sister,” he adds almost somberly. As if the thought of threatening someone’s sister struck a personal chord in him, even if that person was  _ his _ own sister. “I’ve talked to them,” he says and quickly adds on almost as an afterthought. “But don’t tell him I said any of this.”

Magnus can’t help the grin from emerging when he says, “I won’t,” and he knows that Alexander can tell that he isn’t being truthful, but he just sighs.

“Alexander.” Alexander just makes a humming sound indicating that he’s listening when Magnus calls his name again. “If there’s anything you want to know; if there’s something you want to ask about my past, you need only ask it. There are no secrets between us, only unspoken truths.”

Alexander just nods. “Same with me, Magnus.”

“So…” Magnus starts after a moment, allowing themselves a moment to fully process everything. “You called Catarina, huh? How did that go down.”

“She shouted a lot,” Alexander says somberly. “And cursed even more.”

“That sounds like her,” Magnus says with a laugh.

He looks over at Alexander, and sees his posture has somewhat loosened. His shoulders are less hunched and his head held a little higher. It looks like he’s shed some of the weight he’s been carrying on his back and Magnus thinks he couldn’t ask for anything more than that. 

Alexander leans back to join him against the backrest and reaches an arm over to sling across Magnus’s shoulder, pulling him closer to him. Magnus moves with his tug easily. His hands are still holding onto Alexander’s; stroking the back of his hand with his thumb.

This moment feels right. Not everything is healed inside him and he doesn’t think it will be for a long time. But Alexander is here and he isn’t going anywhere and Magnus thinks that maybe the road won’t be quite as long this time around.

Raphael comes over later that night with tostadas and quesadillas and way too much food for just two people to eat, so he allows Alexander to call Jace to come and join them, because in this case with Raphael involved, Jace really is Switzerland.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [reivenesque](http://reivenesque.tumblr.com) and if you could help reblog [ this story](http://reivenesque.tumblr.com/post/162001262808/post-2x12-malec-fic-just-within-reach-but-oh-so) there, I would forever appreciate it.
> 
> Also thoughts, comments and plot bunnies are more than welcome.
> 
> ❤


End file.
